Rooney: Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren't Heroes

We weren't even going to regurgitate the latest ramblings of "60 Minutes" fixture Andy Rooney because we thought no one cared any longer about his attempts to get attention, but we've already had a few outraged comments from relatives of GIs, so here goes.

He writes today in his little-read column (the only place we could find it was the Buffalo News):

Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. But you can be sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives for us sitting comfortably back here at home.

Our soldiers in Iraq are people, young men and women, and they behave like people - sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes brave, sometimes fearful. It's disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage them to fight this war by idolizing them.

We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as if they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn't much voluntary about what most of them have done. A relatively small number are professional soldiers. During the last few years, when millions of jobs disappeared, many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted in the Army. About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq enlisted in the National Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought they'd be called on to fight. They want to come home.

The angry octogenarian goes on to cite 23 suicides by troops in Iraq last year, says we must support the soldiers because most "are victims, not heroes," and complains that "Bush's determination to make the evidence fit the action he took, which it does not, has made things look worse," etc., etc., blah blah blah.

Editor's note: